What better way to get into the festive spirit than with two of NOLA's loudest bands? Hangar 18 played host to these New Orleans based heavy acts and with a crushing local support in tow it promised to be a good night.
Before Silverburn (7) began the room began to fill, surprising for a Wednesday night, even more surprising for those us now reaching 'veteran' gig going status that it was full of students and young people. Two of them (18+) having polished off a little bottle of JD Honey on the way to the venue. Jolly good work lads!
I did mention that perhaps it was "for the memes" (I'll explain later) but it was great to see a packed house from the opening band, Swansea always does themselves proud in this respect. Those who came early got to experience the auditory aggression that is Silverburn.
I saw their first show as this band in The Bunkhouse and from there they've gone from strength to strength, with higher profile gigs and festival appearances, while the material and setlist is now well known they always seem to bring a new edge to the way it's performed, mechanical precision driven by creative soul.
Well received in their native city, the band members are all veterans of the scene, Silverburn continue to impress but I'd suggest they need to add a new tune or two to the set going forward to mix it up in 2025.
Silverburn also have a great merch game due to frontman Jimbob Issac's artistic pedigree however they had very stiff competition from Goatwhore (10). This is where I noted the memes thing earlier, I've seen so so many, mainly women and girls, wearing Goatwhore shirts at gigs and festivals. Now it's not up to anyone to challenge them if they've even heard of the band (if you do you're a dick) but there does seem to be something about having this bands name inscribed on you that always gives them plenty of merch sales and thus a crowd of people wanting to check out the band so proudly adorned on them.
It helps of course that Goatwhore are absolutely brilliant live, ferocious pagan blackened thrash metal that keeps you focused on frontman L. Ben Falgoust II at all times. He's a mammoth of a man with leather gauntlet and the wild performance style of Orange Goblin's Ben Ward. Their heathen music gets you involved, the crowd jumping, headbanging and shouting along as Goatwhore savage you. There's rarely any let up, tracks from their most recent record Angels Hung From The Arches Of Heaven taking the bulk of the eleven song set but they ran the gamut of their discography much to the crowd's delight.
Someone after the show described it as perfect and it was very hard to argue, my main reasoning for coming to this show was that I had never seen either of the main bands before and it was Goatwhore that stole the show, I very much look forward to seeing them again as soon as possible (and yes I bought a shirt)
The last band of the evening were NOLA sludge legends Eyehategod (7), with that incredible set from Goatwhore ringing in our ears, I anticipated a similar level of excitement from one of the loudest bands in the NOLA scene. They are up there with Crowbar in terms of influence, inspired by Discharge, early CoC and various extreme and hardcore bands, Eyehategod are legends of the scene. Unfortunately they seemed a bit disjointed in Swansea, complaints from the stage about the sound (I heard no issue), the lights (I saw no issue) plagued the first part of their set as frontman Mike Williams made a few snide remarks during the long silent pauses while they tried to sort things out.
That being said when they were playing it was exactly what I expected, crushing distortion and tortured vocals, aural torture at it's very best. The similarity of the songs and the breaks in the set meant that perhaps I, and a few more in the crowd weren't as invested as they could have been but Eyehategod played to their strengths towards the close of the set bludgeoning Swansea before heading off stage and returning for and encore to close the night. Eyehategod of course have earned their headliner status over along career but there was a few times when I did think they dost protest too much.
Still all told a brilliant evening of heavy music with a packed Swansea crowd who again turned up to support their scene.
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